Based on Mozart's opera The magic flute. Tells the tragic story of a young prince battling evil forces to rescue his love from the lord of darkness.

Teachers and flutists at all levels have praised Nancy Toff'sThe Flute Book, a unique one-stop guide to the flute and its music. Organized into four main parts--The Instrument, Performance, The Music, and Repertoire Catalog--the book begins with a description of the instrument and its making, offers information on choosing and caring for a flute, sketches a history of the flute, and discusses differences between members of the flute family. In the Performance section, readers learn about breathing, tone, vibrato, articulation, technique, style, performing, and recording. In the extensive analysis of flute literature that follows, Toff places individual pieces in historical context. The book ends with a comprehensive catalog of solo and chamber repertoire, and includes appendices with fingering charts as well as lists of current flute manufacturers, repair shops, sources for flute music and books, and flute clubs and related organizations worldwide. In this Third Edition, Toff has updated the book to reflect technology's advancements--like new digital recording technology and recordings' more prevalent online availability--over the last decade. She has also accounted for new scholarship on baroque literature; recent developments such as the contrabass flute, quarter-tone flute, and various manufacturing refinements and experiments; consumers' purchase prices for flutes; and a thoroughly updated repertoire catalog and appendices.

The Western Indian Ocean in the Eighteenth Century is the first of four volumes offering a sweeping panorama of the Arabian Seas during the early modern period. Focusing on the period 1700-1763, the first volume concentrates on daily life in littoral societies, examining long term issues including climatic change, famine, and the structures of fishing communities. The volume examines littoral societies in each of the major coastal areas of the Western Indian Ocean: East Africa, the Red Seas, the Persian Gulf, and its traditional ties to surrounding hinterlands as well as to the west coast of India. While having particular interest to readers concerned with Indian Ocean history, as an absorbing and innovative account of a much neglected albeit critical area and period, Arabian Seas, 1700-1763 will be of great interest to anyone interested in early modern maritime, social, or economic history. Kings, Gangsters, and Companies, volume two of Arabian Seas, 1700-1763 focuses on European relations with the major states and societies of the Western Indian Ocean during the eighteenth century. As such, it traces the major structural changes in African, South Asian, and Middle Eastern societies during this period. Chapters examine European communities and their relations with the societies of the Indian Ocean basin, the daily life of European soldiers and merchants, relations with Indian women, European views on the Indian caste system as well as the governmental systems they encountered. The volume also details the importance of Indian and Persian merchant communities in the Indian Ocean trading system and the impact of war on the economic development of this system during the eighteenth century. Men and Merchandise, the third volume of Arabian Seas, 1700-1763, provides a detailed examination of the economic and social structures in the Western Indian Ocean focusing on key commodities like bullion, textiles, and the slave trade. Readers will also encounter interesting vignettes of daily life: an Indian nautch girl worried about her inheritance, a Portuguese gangster-friar and pariah workers, the infamous buccaneers of Madagascar, coffee-traders from Yemen, Cairo, and the Crimea, and Iraqi and Iranian bankers who all had relevance to this vast economic system. Men and Merchandise provides insights into other traditionally ignored aspects in the traditional historiography including uprisings aboard slave ships, and details of maroon societies involving refugee slaves in India and Mauritius as well as Dutch slave soldiers in the Persian Gulf. As such, it will prove of great interest to any reader concerned with the social and economic history of the Indian Ocean basin. Europe in Asia, the fourth volume and final volume in Arabian Seas, 1700-1763, details the early phase of European territorial empire building in the western Indian Ocean basin. Particular attention is given to the much neglected history of the Portuguese Estado da India and the attempts of the Portuguese Crown to reform its administration and dwindling possessions in the eighteenth century. The volume examines the direct legacies of the longstanding Portuguese imperial presence in the Arabian Seas, including the experiences of Indian Catholic communities as well as the establishment of Indian settlements and communities in East Africa. Finally, the volume provides an exhaustive treatment of the structures and history of the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and English East India Company (EIC), the establishment of the vast private country trade of the EIC, and the reasons for the relative decline of the VOC and the rise of English power in the region during the eighteenth century.

This new fourth edition of the Historical Dictionary of Gabon brings up to date the political affairs of the country, since the accession to power of Ali Bongo, eldest son of Omar Bongo, the former president-for-life, who died in 2009 after the publication of the third edition. Themes of “continuity” and “change” are present throughout the entries, not only as the Bongo family continues its half century of dynastic rule (there are a dozen Bongos in this new edition), but as the rare primeval tropical rainforests continue to dominate the landscape yet are menaced by destructive logging and palm oil plantations, and as this former French colony after independence continues to collaborate with the French African sphere of influence yet seeks new partners from America and Asia (China, Singapore), and as the country’s numerous ethnic groups perpetuate a multicultural mosaic that is nevertheless threatened by globalization of communications and cultural convergence. This fourth edition of Historical Dictionary of Gabon contains a chronology, an introduction, appendixes, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 300 cross-referenced entries on important personalities, politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Gabon.